in degree, is not altogether unlike them. His agonies, when they are thus brought home to ourſelves, when we have thus adopted and made them our own, begin at laſt to affect us, and we then tremble and ſhudder at the thought of what he feels. For as to be in pain or diſtreſs of any kind excites the moſt exceſſive ſorrow, ſo to conceive or to imagine that we are in it, excites ſome degree of the ſame emotion, in proportion to the vivacity or dulneſs of the conception.
That this is the ſource of our fellow-feeling for the miſery of others, that it is by changing places in fancy with the ſufferer, that we come either to conceive or to be affected by what he feels, may be demonſtrated by many obvious obſervations, if it ſhould not be thought ſufficiently evident by itſelf. When we ſee a ſtroke aimed and juſt ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another perſOn, we naturally ſhrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in ſome meaſure, and are hurt by it as well as the ſufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the ſlack rope, naturally writhe and twiſt and balance their own bodies, as they ſee him do, and as they feel that they themſelves muſt do if in his ſituation. Perſons of delicate fibres and a weak conſtitution of the body, complain that in looking on the ſores and ulcers which are expoſed by beggers in the ſtreets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneaſy ſenſation in the correſpondent part of their own bodies. The horror which they
